Let’s move on to Netflix Leave The World Behind Part 2 Analysis. If you haven’t already, please be sure to read PART 1 of this analysis so you can follow along. SPOILERS AHEAD SO PLEASE WATCH THE MOVIE BEFORE CONTINUING.
Part 2 – The Curve
Part 2 opens with Rose nagging her mother Amanda, who is still in bed, about her “two problems”: the internet still isn’t working and she can’t finish her show Friends 🥲. We notice that Rose is maybe in her preteens but is still very baby like and dependent on her parents for most things. She is completely oblivious to the seriousness of the events around her and is caught up in her own selfish needs. For a child this is expected generally speaking because the “id” is strongly at work in her i.e. those primitive, instinctual forces. Her most compelling drive is to satisfy her own needs and that’s all she really cares about. Interestingly, as we will see, this tendency of the “id” will save them all in the end!
As Amanda dismisses Rose, she reaches for her phone on her nightstand and we catch a glimpse of the book Beach Towel A Novel by Otto Irving. This is not a real book it is actually a MacGuffin. This book is from another Esmail created TV Series called Mr. Robot so it’s likely that this movie and that show are happening in a shared universe. It isn’t certain exactly how that novel connects to this movie but what we do know is that it involves certain strange events at a beach. We’ve already unpacked the symbolism of beaches in Part 1 so be sure to check that out.
Amanda looks at her phone and it’s alive with notifications giving further confirmation about the goings on. The notifications report news that there are widespread power outages across the USA and hackers are responsible, but we already know this from the TV emergency broadcast. What is strange here is that the last notification in the list as she reads down is in gibberish; unintelligible symbols. Looking closely at this it appears to be leet speak or hacker speak. More proof! She wakes up Clay to show him her phone but when he looks at it the notifications disappear. Spooky!😨😨
She anxiously explains what she saw to Clay who, forever the mediator, tries to console his wife by offering to drive into town to get more information.
Amanda knows something is wrong but this is more instinctual, without any real data to drive her decision making. She is yet to fully appreciate the true scope of the problem at hand. As we shall see, there is where the Ego and Superego will help her. Netflix Leave The World Behind Part 2 is about to get very interesting!
The Deer Return
A short while later at breakfast Amanda tries to explain to Rose how they now have to share the house with the Scotts but she doesn’t care. Rose is fixated on her own need to get the TV fixed and finish her show, oblivious and indifferent to the larger issues at hand. Dad and Mom can’t help fix the TV so Rose stomps out to the pool in frustration.
While brooding at the poolside Rose notices some deer looking at her silently from the edge of the surrounding forest (yep, more deer). She appears curious and intrigued by them and goes closer, as if drawn to them. It’s a little surprising how someone normally so helpless would approach a wild animal with no hesitation. Like her, deer are animal driven by instinct so they are kin in a way; they both operate on an instinctual level. The “id” forces in Rose and the primal animal instincts operate on the same “frequency” as it were.
Clay stated the significance of deer to Meso-American traditions in Part I and he was right. Generally the deer is regarded as sacred in that culture and is ubiquitous in its mythology. More specifically, the deer is connected to the idea of water and ending drought with rain. This is very interesting! In the remote past, the legend continues, the deer gave birth to the sun. The sun in frequently used to symbolize the ego. So we can see how this myth is a cryptic reference to the birth of the ego and superego from the id, which is exactly the process in Freud’s model.
We might say then that the appearance or resurgence of the deer represent a process opposite from which the ego and superego are born. 🤯🤯🤯
More concretely, the appearance of the deer correspond to the changes in the psyche/the world we discussed in Part 1. As order collapses and the “id” has an opportunity to “take the light” in the psyche, there will be parallel signs in the physical world. Deer encroaching on the human dwellings signifies the impending dominance of these primal forces on the world of civilized man. As the “id” forces in the psyche are more empowered the deer get bolder and more comfortable venturing into human spaces. This is brilliant symbolism! Mama has come back home.
Maya, The Illusion
Back downstairs, Ruth wakes up with a start. Her dad is showering so she takes the opportunity to sneak out into the kitchen where Amanda is sitting, knowing her dad won’t get in the way. Ruth is sharp and analytical but also a little rude and blunt yet she is the one who reaches out for conversation with Amanda and thereby acts like a bridge/facilitator/catalyst for helping improve the relationship between Amanda and George who Amanda still distrusts. The conversation that ensues is an improvement from the night before, so we see she is playing her role well, even if unwittingly.
Interestingly we find out that Amanda has a career in client relations, which seems surprising since we know she “f*****g hates people”. It seems her attitude change was recent and sudden. It also appears that she is wearing a mask to survive in the world and is not her true self.
Ruth and her father talk separately after Amanda leaves. They talk about her mother/George’s wife who is yet to return. Ruth is worried that her mother’s flight may not make it in the chaos and gets a little sentimental.
Clay meanwhile is driving into town smoking a cigarette. He checks the radio and GPS, nothing! Nothing but farmland and desolation on the road back to the town.
George leaves to visit his neighbors the Huxleys. He is stoic and upbeat on the outside but as he’s in the car alone outside the Huxleys residence, he pulls out his phone we see that he too is very worried about his wife Maya and has been trying to text her but to no avail. There is no messages from her end either. The talk with his daughter may have made him even more worried.
In Buddhist and Hindu mythology Maya is the illusion (or delusion) of the phenomenal world. Keyword: Illusion, meaning that it isn’t “real”. The philosophers instruct us that the real truth is hidden behind the mere appearance of the physical and our mission as humans is to peel back the layers of this illusion until we find Truth.
On George’s phone we see that he has texted Maya repeatedly but we don’t see any response from her. Does she even exist? While we have no reason to believe that George and his daughter are lying about having a wife and mother respectively, no attempt is made to assure us, the audience, of her existence either. No pictures, no flashbacks and no responses in iMessage. We are being persuaded I daresay, to doubt her very existence!
Recall that Maya is an art dealer who travelled to Morocco and was expected back the day after the chaos started. George is currently in Long Island. Looking at a map you will observe that both places are separated by the mighty Atlantic Ocean. There is literally a vast ocean of separation between George, the superego, who’s located in the West and his Maya located in the East closer to the Sun. George is separated from his Maya/Illusion/Delusion and as such he is poised for radical transformation!🚀🚀🚀
Next to him on the passenger seat is a dangerous looking pistol, which he grabs as he enters the Huxley residence.
Migration Patterns
Oh, it’s the winter of the wanted
Winter by TV On The Radio
Yeah, it’s the hardest part of nature
Lord, have mercy on this creature
Give me some heat, I know you’ve got it
Back at the house Archie, Amanda and Rose are at the pool when Ruth joins them at the poolside. Archie, a teenage boy, notices her immediately in her bathing suit and smiles, ’nuff said 🤭🤭. Rose on the other hand is staring intensely at the forest to the edge of the property but the deer are gone. We get the impression that something in there is calling out to her. Will she answer?
Meanwhile, good ol’ Clay is still on the road and not much has changed. He pulls over and steps outside with hopes of getting a cell signal (not happening 🤡) but leaves the car radio on. We can see the radio dial is tuned to frequency 1619 MHz, incidentally the year 1619 marks a very significant date in the history of slavery in what would later become the United States.
A garbled male voice is suddenly heard on the radio reporting that the fallout of the cyberattack “has lead to a catastrophic environmental disaster in the South impacting animal migration patterns” before suddenly cutting off. This is actually very a clever way of confirming the changes in the psyche (or self) that are central to the story.
At first it appears to give a rational explanation as to why deer would appear suddenly out of the forest near the property but there is more here. “Migration patterns” describe the change within the psyche where the primal “id”, driven by its base desires just like animals, is “on the move” and the structure of the psyche/self is changing. Transformation is happening just as we deduced.
The brief message also teases us to reconsider the meaning of “cyberattack”. Recall that the cyber infrastructure has emerged to become critical to the functioning of civilization. Analogous to the human body, one could say it is the “brain” of our civilization. When looked at from this light we see how a metaphorical “cyberattack” could indeed trigger transformation of the psyche because the same would be an “attack” on the brain. Any changes in the brain are bound to affect the self/psyche.
So we now see that it is changes in brain function (visible) that trigger changes in the self/psyche (invisible). One is a change to the Pronoun I and one is a change to the Eye organ. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Either way these changes are happening in parallel, simultaneously; transformation in both the inner world and outer world is the meaning behind the symbols in play here. “Cyberattack” and “migration patterns” are not what they appear to be. Clever isn’t it?
One Step Closer
Rose: No one cares what I say…
Archie: That’s probably true.
Archie and Rose, Leave The World Behind (2023)
Things are getting spicy now🌶️. The “id” Rose, the “ego” Clay and the “superego” George will each have something significant to their personal journey take place.
Back at the poolside, a lusty Archie is secretly recording Ruth as she sunbathes (not cool Archie!😡). Rose is still transfixed by the deer experience as she continues to stare into the forest. She tells her brother about what she saw but he doesn’t care. Rose insists that “…this was different, like they were trying to tell us something”. With conviction and determination she marches into the forest to “see what else is out there”. Archie reluctantly follows.
They eventually they discover a small shed in the middle of the forest with a bike in it. Archie is intent on playing around but Rose is compelled as if by some invisible force and is serious about her mission to find out more. Paying Archie little attention she looks out the window and discovers another house in the distance while Archie stays in her ear trying to get her to feel afraid.
On the path to investigate the new house they found, Rose spots another deer which runs off before Archie can see it. Archie is bitten by a bug of some sort near his ankle and wants to go back to the safety of the Scott house. Rose, still compelled, wants to visit the new house but because Archie won’t go with her she reluctantly marches back to the Scott house with him. Nobody is taking her seriously yet, but they will…
Back to Clay who’s still driving, he eventually spots a frantic Spanish speaking woman on the side of the road and pulls over. She tries to communicate with Clay in Spanish but he doesn’t speak it. The subtitles do not provide a translation regrettably, but below is a translation of what she said:
Eventually Clay, the mediator, simply drives off and leaves the woman as she pleads with him in Spanish. Cold! He doesn’t know the language but at least he can give her a lift back to safety at the house. Clay continues a little way and, like the lady said, he sees a plane dropping what appears from afar to be a red powdery substance. Clay, scared, turns around his car at the sight of this and speeds in the opposite direction. In his rearview we see that isn’t a powder but red leaflets being dropped by the plane. Try as he might, Clay can’t outpace it and is quickly overwhelmed in a shower of red.
Back at the Huxleys, George is surveying a disaster zone. Random stuff is everywhere on the lawn, the house is in disarray, windows are broken and it appears the house was looted. George, ever civilized and formal, announces his arrival despite the chaotic scene to make sure there’s no one there. He goes directly to the garage to retrieve a satellite phone that he knew the Huxleys owned beforehand. Unfortunately there is still no signal when he holds the satellite phone up to the sky.
He is about to head back to his car to leave when he decides to walk to the shore nearby to investigate further. The scene is one of death as dismembered bodies are strewn all over the beach. George is mortified and for the first time he loses his composure (understandably). Clearly there was a plane crash nearby but it isn’t over yet. He observes another plane in the distance careening directly to his location on the beach. He flees just as a passenger jet crashes behind him, narrowly escaping. As you can see in Netflix Leave The World Behind Part 2 things ramp up in intensity quite a bit.
I Fell Into the Pool…
The Id, Rose, is being empowered by positive experiences, being drawn closer and closer to “something” by some invisible force. Or maybe it’s her intuition? Deer are her guide of sorts that, as we shall see later, will lead her to the fulfillment of her desires.
On the other hand, the ego Clay and superego George are being “brought down”. Their experiences are breaking their resolve. Formerly composed and confident they now find themselves out of sorts and deeply traumatized by their respective experiences.
This brings us back to George’s lie. When he gets back to the house and is asked why he is wet by his daughter (Amanda is also in the room) he answers: I fell into the pool. We know that he is lying because we saw that he got wet in the near death incident at the shore. He is lying mainly to spare his daughter the pain of having to worry about her mother.
However, In a way he is not lying because, figuratively speaking, this is exactly what happens. He left his identification behind at the opera which symbolizes ego death (as we explained in Part 1) and now he falls into a pool aka “falls into the deep”. Symbolically this is a loss in his sense of self, a disassociation with a hitherto known and understood inner reality and consequently a fundamental change in his consciousness.
Ruth doesn’t believe him (and doesn’t hide it 😉). George gives her a reason to leave the room and he finally decides to come clean (at least partially) on what he knows about the situation. “Falling into the pool” has done its job and we see a previously stoic George give in to his fears and concerns. He’s shaken! This actually brings himself and Amanda closer. Ruth isn’t there but she is the bridge between them that catalyses this interaction and admission.
George goes on to explain that in his line of work you have to learn to read “the curve” i.e. he has to understand patterns and cycles in the world. Amanda is listening to him speak and also Ruth who, unknown to both, is eavesdropping nearby. Amanda knows that something is not right but she is yet to fully appreciate the full scope of the disaster. She also doesn’t trust George (this is changing) but when he explains that it’s likely that the global satellite system has failed and that’s why he was nearly killed by a plane falling out of the sky, she is shaken and the true shape of things begins to sink in, finally 😅.
Amanda calls for her children just before a shrill, deafening buzz rings out from nowhere. It is loud and painful, cracking glass and forcing everyone to their knees including Archie and Rose who are on their way back to the house from the forest. Everyone covers their ears agony. Despite the pain, Amanda races into the forest looking for her kids.
And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God.
Book of Revelations Chapter 16: 19
Netflix Leave The World Behind Part 2 was amazing. Click HERE to move on to Part 3 of this analysis.
